Yes it is. And yes, the resolution issue in VMs can be fixed (at least it can in VirtualBox), but as you said it’s not worth it. Again, I strongly recommend a USB stick installation as a “temporary bare metal” - you will see if your wifi works as well.
You don’t have a browser problem in Haiku. WebPositive should do the job, and when it doesn’t (e.g., Youtube), you have other options as well. I use Falkon for that purpose. Even Firefox (as iceweasel) was ported recently.
I use Emacs as an editor/IDE/quick internet browser, and for other tasks as well. But I see you are a Vim guy, so maybe your current combination is better for you. At any rate, I strongly recommend giving Genio a try, it’s a very good native IDE.
I have yet to try SDL3, still using SDL2 because (1) SDL3 is quite new, therefore not tried-and-true yet, (2) I am very reluctant to change my programs/libraries once again. But if I were to guess, I’d say building SDL3 should be pretty straightforward, as you predicted.
One more thing: if you haven’t already, install QuickLaunch. It is very convenient for “keyboard-centric” use, and it should be part of the default installation in my opinion.